For most Cratejoy merchants, the fourth quarter of the year is their strongest. At the end of 2016, we saw a huge surge of sales on the Cratejoy Marketplace, and are expecting an even bigger holiday season this year. Our product and marketing teams have been preparing for the holiday rush since September, and we wanted to share some of the initiatives we’ve been working on to help our Marketplace merchants get as many sales as possible this holiday season!

We’ve outlined 11 of the marketing tactics we’ll be working on to make this holiday season a blowout for our Marketplace merchants below.

1) Black Friday/Cyber Monday (+ bonus Subscription Box Sunday)

We’ve created exclusive collections for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Subscription Box Sunday, and content for Small Business Saturday and Giving Tuesday is also in our marketing pipeline. Cratejoy’s marketing team and Cratejoy affiliates will be heavily promoting these dates online (via email, social, and more).

2) NYC Subway Ads

Cratejoy is running a total of 1,000 subway ads throughout various populous subway trains in NYC this holiday season. We’ve never tried subway ads before, but it’s something we’re super excited to test this year!

3) Austin Airport Ads

This year, we’re also running ads in the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (Cratejoy is based out of Austin, TX!).

4) Times Square NYC Ads

We’ve doubled down on advertising this year and have purchased ad space in Times Square in NYC (right under where the ball drops on NYE). These ads will run right through the entirety of the holiday season.

5) Public Relations

We have partnered with a PR firm to support our marketing efforts this holiday period. We’ve already gotten a number of Marketplace merchants featured in major media publications like Buzzfeed, InStyle, Brit+Co, HuffPost, and many, many more! Our marketing team is also working to promote the Cratejoy Marketplace as a whole to drive overall traffic to the site.

Cratejoy merchants placed in Brit+Co. Holiday Gift Guide

6) Gift Guides

We’ve written a number of gift guides around various themes and verticals. Each highlights a different collection of subscription boxes. Cratejoy’s marketing team will be highly promoting these guides through email and paid ad campaigns. These guides are also going to get syndicated with influential publications that do holiday guide round-ups and promotions.

7) Gifting

It’s no surprise that gifting is popular over the holidays. Merchants typically see a 40-60% sales bump in Q4 with a large portion of that coming from gifts. Plus, our gifting experience is now better than ever for both merchants and gift recipients!

8) Sendable Wishlists

Cratejoy customers can create and share wishlists with their loved ones! This will lead to more gifting and also attract new purchasers to the Marketplace who may not have known about it before.

9) Radio Ads

For the first time ever, we are running targeted Cratejoy ads on SiriusXM, a satellite radio station that has similar audience demographics to current Cratejoy Marketplace subscribers. With over 87 million gross impressions in an 8-week period, this is fantastic exposure for Cratejoy merchants!

10) Paid Email Promotion

A number of large websites and influential publications have daily or weekly e-mail newsletters. Our PR firm is placing Cratejoy merchants’ boxes as gift ideas in these emails.

11) Direct Mail

We’ve designed Cratejoy postcards (similar to flyers but heavier stock) that we are mailing out to thousands of households.

How We Choose Merchants to Feature

Our marketing team chooses merchants to include in promotions based on a number of factors: high ratings, good reviews, great product photography, low churn, and good fit with our chosen themes and verticals. Read more about it here!